


Here Is What I Know Now

by ofinfinitesspace



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Is it canon non-compliance if I haven't seen the movie?, M/M, Oblique reference to the possibility of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofinfinitesspace/pseuds/ofinfinitesspace
Summary: This is where he had known it would go off the rails. But lying in bed last night, listening to Nico soothe Nile back to sleep, he couldn’t find another way. Of all the impossible things he’d done in his 900 years of life, looking Andy in the eye and saying “Quynh is still alive” was completely beyond him.--In which, good people do their imperfect best in a terrible situation because they love each other. Also, the restorative power of baths, macaroni and cheese, dancing, and vague or inaccurate pop-culture references.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 78





	Here Is What I Know Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sodiumflare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodiumflare/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I imagine that this takes place a weekish after the events of the movie, but assumes that some things that happen in the movie didn't happen (i.e. Nile telling the crew that she dreams about Quynh). I haven't actually seen this movie. What am I doing here writing 4,000 words of fic about it? That is an excellent question. [The real answer is that I love sodiumflare very much and also the punchline to a 15 year old joke]
> 
> The song at the end, and the source of the title, is Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky.

When Nile wakes up screaming, Joe hears her first. It’s so rarely him who’s up. Nicky sleeps so lightly and Andy sleeps hardly at all, so they have been the first responders on nightmare duty. And Nico is so much better suited for it, Joe thinks. Even Andy, gruff as she may be, has seen some shit, knows what it’s like to see some shit, and is always kind in her forthrightness. Joe doesn’t think of himself as without tenderness but he’s slow to wake and nearly monolingual in the dead of night. 

When he makes his way down the hall to room Nile shares with Andy, Andy is nowhere to be found and Nile is sitting up, knees hugged to her chest. She's clearly panicked and disoriented, has a wild look like she can't quite figure out where she is. He moves between her and the window, casting a shadow across her bed, making sure she sees him before he sits down beside her. He whispers to her hoping that if Nile can speak two languages in the midst of a midnight panic attack, Pashto is one of them and that he hasn't accidentally said something insulting in his rough translation through two other languages and across 500 years.

He pulls gently on one of her hands, pressing it against his chest, hoping the steady rhythm of his heart and breath will say the things he doesn't remember the words for. With his other hand he rubs her back, trying to create a bubble of calm in the circle of his arms to keep out whatever is swirling around her. By the time her panic subsides and her breathing starts to level out, he has re-assembled enough English vocabulary to say, "c'mon, we're taking you to the big bed. You need some sleep and you’re not getting it here.” 

He steers her back to his room, where Nicky, who woke up when Joe slipped out of bed and connected the dots about where he went, is half sitting up waiting for him. He reaches out for Nile and Joe gives her up to him somewhat gratefully. Of Nicky's many talents, he can speak at least four languages within minutes of opening his eyes. She goes easily, following Joe's guidance to sink into the bed, lets Nicky pull her into his arms and nestles her head into his chest. Joe's about to switch the light back off and crawl back into bed when he hears Nicky's voice, quiet and calm, say "Nile, will you tell me what you dream about? There can be peace for you here but it won't come easily, you have to chase it."

Joe watches in awe in the half light as Nicky coaxes her nightmares out of her. He can't catch what he whispers to her but he feels the vibrations of the encouragement Nicky hums into her hair echoing across the room to him. He sees her shake her head against him and mutter something, but he only hears Nicky’s response: “Nile, we can take it. We have dreamt so many things. Let us hold this with you.” 

The plurals snag on Joe’s brain, so he climbs into bed, wrapping around the side of her Nicky doesn’t hold and reaching over to grasp Nicky’s arm. In this nest of bodies, they hear Nile’s nightmare. Nicky never flinches, just sweeps his hands soothing across her back and holds her close as she sobs each detail into his chest. Joe can only curl around her tight and try not to weep. 

~

When Joe wakes up not enough hours later, Nile is still asleep. He quietly untangles himself, waking Nicky in the process. They whisper while getting dressed, trying to make a game plan before they have to face Andy.

Nile doesn’t emerge until much later. She’s showered and Joe thinks she looks better rested than they’ve ever seen her. When she finally makes her way to the kitchen, Nicky is flipping pancakes at the stove and Andy drinking her third cup of coffee after a night of, well whatever it was it wasn’t sleeping.

Nicky waits until Joe has poured Nile a cup of coffee and returned to his chair next to Andy. Then he turns to her as casually as he can and says, “Nile, you should tell Andy what you told me last night. About your dreams.”

Joe looks at Nicky. Nile looks at Nicky. Andy has her nose half way down her coffee cup and "tell me what" echoes back at her with a bit of a splash that makes her laugh. Nicky only nods to Nile.

"I dream about a woman who is drowning,” Nile says and Andy freezes, her mug halfway back to the table. Joe takes it from her before she can drop it and settles a hand between her shoulder blades.

"I dream of a woman who is drowning. She's trapped." Nile continues. She’s staring into her own mug and can’t see Andy’s reaction, so she speaks slowly but without faltering. "I feel the water rushing into her lungs. And...and her panic, I feel her panic."

What Andy says next has to be a curse word, from the way she bites it off, but Joe doesn’t think he’s ever it heard before. If he has, it was a very long time ago. Nicky tries to go to her, but she’s out of her chair and out of the room before he gets halfway to the table. He chases after her, pausing only to meet Joe’s eyes.

This is what they’d said they’d do, once it was out in the open. Divide and conquer. Figure it out. He turns to Nile, who has her head in her hands. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, she was never supposed to get caught in the crossfire. But then, suddenly, she was the crossfire. She hears him move his chair closer and lifts her head, “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know.”

This is where he had known it would go off the rails. But lying in bed last night, listening to Nico soothe Nile back to sleep, he couldn’t find another way. Of all the impossible things he’d done in his 900 years of life, looking Andy in the eye and saying “Quynh is still alive” was completely beyond him.

“There is nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You did nothing wrong. We shouldn’t have made you do that, never mind without knowing what was going on.” He takes a deep breath, willing down the tears he feels rising to the surface. “I was a coward.”

Nile looks at him, clocks his anguish and the strength of Andy’s reaction. “You know her?” she asks.

So, he tries to explain. About how before there was Nicky-and-Joe there was Andy-and-Quynh. About the dreams that had brought them together, like the dreams that had brought them Nile. About how Andy and Quynh saw who he and Nico were to each other before either of them could see it and how they taught them to cope – and thrive – with the life they had to lead. He tells her about the argument over how best to use their power that almost came to blows and the decision to split up for a while. Joe had known in his heart of hearts that they hadn’t meant for it to be forever, but he’d been so angry and then Andy and Quynh had left in the night. He tells her about the witch trials in England, the torture, the iron maiden, and the decades they spent off the coast of Norfolk with a dredging boat.

Now it’s Nile who is pulling Joe into a tight hug. “Oh my god,” she breathes like she’s still reckoning with what it all means. “I am so so sorry.” Finally, she pulls away, searching Joe’s face. “How can I help?”

“I have no idea,” he admits.

Nile looks at the counter were the breakfast Nicky had made is getting cold. “Pancakes?” she offers. That does sound good

~

Joe is drying the breakfast dishes, putting them away, and Nile is hunched over her laptop squinting when Nicky comes back alone. Joe doesn’t think anything of it until he hears a bath running upstairs. “Nico,” he asks cautiously, “where’s Andy?”

“What?!” Nicky says and seems bewildered at the fear in Joe’s voice, “she said she wanted to take a bath. And it’s not like she can –“ _Fuck._ Joe is upstairs and banging open the bathroom door before Nicky can realize what he almost said. But Andy is only laying back in a tub full of bubbles, her toes peaking up and gripping the other side of the tub.

She reads the panic on Joe’s face and rolls her eyes. “Joey” she sighs “what did you think I was going to do…”

Joe breathes out. He can’t stand it, her locked up in this bathroom all alone. Not with the rest of them so close. It makes him sad and it makes him angry in a way he doesn’t understand.

“I’m not doing this without you,” she says like she could read his mind. “I can’t do this without you. I just need to take a fucking bath and not have you looking at me like that for one goddamn minute.”

Joe backs out of the room, closing the door and resting his head against the door jamb for a moment. He’s about to turn away when he hears a stifled sob and the water turn back on.

Nicky meets him on the stairs and crumples into Joe as soon as he’s within arm’s reach. Joe can feel the fissures that have been spreading through his heart give way as he closes his arms around Nico and pulls him close. He turns them into the curve of the staircase, puts Nicky between his body and the wall, trying to carve out some space for Nicky to break apart.

When Nicky finally speaks he only says, “she’s still out there.”

Joe can only whisper back, “I know,” before giving up on holding back his own tears. His grief feels massive, as if he hadn’t already done this, twice, hundreds of years ago. He lets the wave of it crash over him, loses himself for a moment to the ache in his chest and the warmth of Nicky’s arms around him.

They don’t hear Nile slip into the kitchen, turn the stove on under the kettle, and pull four mugs out of the cabinet.

By the time the screech of the kettle breaks through the silence, the storm has passed. Joe leans his forehead against Nicky, wiping his tears away with his thumb. They pull apart enough to see Nile watching them levelly from the doorway. Joe thought he’d feel embarrassed, but he just shakes his head and tries to scrub the last of his tears away.

“What do we do now?” Nile asks from the bottom of the stairs. Joe feels like he sees so much wisdom in her eyes. Maybe too much for a 26-year-old. She’s asking about right now and tomorrow and next year all at the same time.

“The same thing we always do,” Nicky says, weaving his fingers into Joe’s and starting down the stairs, “whatever Andy wants.”

Months later, over a drink at a fancy bar Nile has more than earned, Joe will ask her why she laughed so hard at that. She will pull up a video on her phone of the weirdest mice he has ever seen but he will laugh harder than his has laughed in the entire time he’s known her. And it will be entirely worth it, later, when he calls Nicky “Pinky” and gets punched in the stomach.

But for now, she presses mugs of tea into their hands and says, “I have something to show you.”

The images Nile shows them on her laptop are incredible. Metal detectors the size of yachts. Submarines with claws like arcade games. Shipwrecks pulled from oceans after centuries, their contents rid of mud and perfectly restored in museums. Joe knows that people can’t be shined back to perfect polish like a sapphire, but he wonders. And, dear god, he wants to try.

They had known all this in theory, he hears Nicky explaining. But they’d never actually investigated the possibility because they’d thought she was dead. Been sure of it. Joe hears Nile ask how they knew, cautiously, and hears Nicky start to say Booker’s name. Of all the lies this might have been the worst, because he sees now it was told to protect them. They’d told Booker that there were worse things to lose someone to than death to comfort him, and Booker had lied to try to give some of that comfort back.

Nile covers Nicky’s hand with hers and says, “let me make dinner tonight.”

Nicky shakes his head. “Nile, you don’t have to...” he glances at the tea, the research. “There’s nothing you have to atone for.”

Nile smiles. “I want to, Nicky,” she assures him. “Besides, I’m an American. We’re great at comfort food.”

~

Andy stays upstairs for hours. They hear the tub drain and refill twice. And then nothing but footsteps walking back and forth. Later, the sound of something breakable crashing to the floor and then a resigned flop onto the bed. At some point he hears the door open and then close again, but Andy stays away. After the fourth time Joe asks if someone should go upstairs, Nicky makes him go on a run. He reminds him of the perils of crowding Andy, that they’re lucky she’s still in the house where they can keep tabs on her from a distance and where she knows where to find them if she needs them.

When Joe comes back from his run, the house smells amazing. But Nicky has his head in his hands. At first Joe is worried but then he hears Nicky moan “I cannot believe you think that’s _cheese_.” Nile only flicks cold water at him and keeps stirring. It’s possible, Joe thinks, that they might be okay.

Nile is putting a casserole dish of something that Nicky called “a hate crime against pasta” into the oven when Andy finally comes downstairs. She’s carrying a mug with the string of a tea bag hanging out. Joe has no idea how she got it, but he is starting to notice how quietly Nile moves through the house.

“What’s she doing?” Andy asks.

Joe doesn’t say, “penance.” He says, “cooking dinner” the same moment Nicky says, “committing atrocities against Italian cuisine” and a hint of a smile flashes through the exhaustion on her face.

Nicky loops his arm around Andy’s waist and Joe puts his arm around her shoulders. He realizes at the last moment that “are you okay?” is the dumbest question, so he asks, “what do you need, Boss?”

“Alcohol,” Andy groans as she tips her forehead onto the point of Nicky’s shoulder. He and Nicky jump into action; they know what to do with marching orders.

Nicky steers Andy to the couch, as Joe swings through the kitchen. He grabs wine glasses and then a bottle of wine. Thinks better of it and gets vodka, but keeps the wine glasses. “Join us?” He asks, tipping the bottle toward Nile.

“No. Thank you.” She says, “I’ll finish dinner.” He can read her desire to give them space and he’s grateful for it. 

They settle on the couch with Andy between them. Nicky pours and, just before they clink glasses, Andy says wryly, “to fucking nightmares.”

They drink in silence for a while.

Joe can count on one hand the number of times he has seen Andy cry. Maybe once, from despair, in the immediate aftermath of Quynh’s disappearance. But then she’d mostly railed against a god she didn’t believe in and the men who did, screamed into the roar of the waves, and threw her into the work of searching. And maybe once again after they’d decided to take a job that wasn’t dredging after nearly a decade of doing nothing else. She claimed she hadn’t had a single dream, good or bad, since the beginning of the common era. But the night before they were set to sail for France she didn’t stop Joe, after he gently shook her awake, from holding her as she cried and cried until she fell asleep again. They didn’t speak of it the next morning when Nico woke up alone and found Joe asleep on his back and Andy curled into a ball like a cat with her head on his chest. 

She doesn’t lean into them now, just lets Joe cover her hands with his, lets Nico run his fingers through her hair massaging her scalp, and lets tears fall down her face as if she doesn’t feel any of it.

And then, “she is going to _hate me,_ ” Andy almost snarls.

Nico leans his face into her hair and murmurs “no” over and over again. But Joe knows it’s not only possible, but likely, that she would hate them all. It wouldn’t be fair, but that doesn’t mean it would be wrong.

After a while, Andy wipes her tears with her palm, flops back dramatically against Joe’s chest and says brightly, “did I ever tell you about the time that Quynh stole an elephant from the king of Siam?” She had not, or if she had, it had been a long time ago. Joe is amazed by how crystal-clear Andy’s memory of Quynh is. Even telling a story that happened long before Joe was born, she is a perfect mimic of Quynh’s expressions.

And when Nile shouts from the kitchen, “okay kids! Dinner’s ready!” Andy bursts out laughing **.** It might be the best sound that Joe has ever heard. And it’s contagious. He starts laughing too, feels a little drunk, either on vodka or the comfort of Andy’s leaning into him, Nicky’s hand running through his hair. Nicky starts laughing soon after, the peals of it hitting Joe after they vibrate through Andy’s body. Nile just grins looking victorious. 

Nile doesn’t even bother with setting the table, just brings the casserole dish and a pile of plates into the living room, swats Joe’s feet off the coffee table to make room for the food. The thing that Nicky has called “an abomination unto ziti” is actually called macaroni and cheese and it’s delicious. After the day they had, it almost wouldn’t matter so long as it was calorie dense and hot. 

Even Nicky is won over. He takes two bites, looks at Nile seriously and says, “Okay, she can stay.”

For a while there is contented silence, then Nile says “I have a question,” then glances at Andy and seems to think better of it.

Andy catches the look. “Ask it,” she says shortly, “knowing is better.”

“Joe explained to me about the dreams. I know Booker said they stopped but, will I keep having them, until…”

Joe suddenly realizes he doesn't know. It had been natural to assume that Booker had lied, to jump first to rage. He’d have to admit it was possible that the dreams had just stopped on their own accord. But he didn’t want to believe that their souls would give up on each other, even when their conscious selves might have. “I guess we don’t know,” he says eventually.

“We could ask –“ Nicky ventures, but Andy only shakes her head and seems to say, "not yet." “It won’t be forever,” Nicky says then, and takes Nile's hand.

~

“You cooked, I’ll clean up,” Andy announces too cheerfully once their plates were empty. It had been the rule since the beginning, Nicky probably hadn’t washed a dish in a three hundred years. And even if he wants to, Joe knows better than to argue with Andy when she has a certain kind of look in her eye. A look that right now says, “help me pretend that tonight is normal.”

Nicky puts a record on like it’s any other night in the last 100 years. Nile starts to help Andy clear dishes and Andy doesn’t push her away. Joe lets Nicky pull him up from the couch and into his arms as he sways to the music.

_Well I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky. Yes, I had a dream I stood beneath an orange sky, with my brother standing by._

With his chin on Nicky’s shoulder, Joe watches Andy and Nile in the kitchen. Andy’s at the sink, with her back to the living room and Nile moves around, drying dishes, putting them away. He can’t hear what they’re saying but he sees Nile ask a question and watches as Andy pauses, nods, dries her hands and sits down at the table where Nile is opening her laptop.

 _And I had a dream_ _I stood beneath an orange sky, with my sister standing by_ _, with my sister standing by. I said sister, here is what I know now._

He watches Andy consider what Nile has brought to her. He knows that from the moment they heard the dream it was never a question of _if_ , but _when_ and _how_. Every minute that Quynh is underwater, time is against them. Even more so now. A year ago, even ten days ago, Andy might already be on plane, a ferry, a train, whatever could get her there fastest. She would have dove in the water herself, if that’s what it took, as she had done so many times before. She had been so careful with their lives, so careless with her own; impatient to throw herself between danger and the ones she loves. Now, he watches Andy steel herself to wait.

 _But sister you know I'm so weary._ _But sister you know I'm so weary_ _._ _And you know sister_ _, my hearts been broken. Sometimes, sometimes, my mind is too strong to carry on, too strong to carry on._

Andy appears over Nicky’s shoulder and touches it lightly, “may I cut in?” she asks. Nicky moves aside and Joe is left alone with Andy looking at him levelly. He reaches out for her, twining the fingers of his left hand into her right and pulling her close with his other hand between her shoulder blades. He breaths in vodka, and whatever random stolen hotel shampoo she is using this week. Andy leans against him with a sigh.

_And here is what I know now, here is what I know now. Goes like this. In your love, my salvation lies, in your love, my salvation lies, in your love my salvation lies._

Out of the corner of eye, he sees Nicky pulling Nile up from where she had flopped on the couch. Her eyes are shining and Nicky kisses her forehead as he pulls her close and dances them nearer to Joe and Andy. Joe releases Andy’s hand to wrap his arm around Nicky’s waist. He leans his head onto Nicky, as Andy drapes her free arm over Nile’s shoulder, closing the circle. 

_Yes, I had a dream_ _I stood beneath an orange sky, with my brother and my sister standing by, with my brother and my sister standing by._

**Author's Note:**

> A Couple of Things: 
> 
> 1\. Should Joe and Nicky made Nile tell Andy about her dreams, especially without any explanation. Probably not. (Of course not!) But I wanted Nicky and Joe to have made manifestly the wrong choice here. I wanted this to be hard and for them to be unprepared and sometimes bad at it. 
> 
> 2\. The thing about who can speak what languages in what state of wakefulness is about speed of waking up and not facility with languages. I think English loads last for Joe because who wants to cope with this mess of a language before coffee, but it loads earlier for Nicky because of how goddamn hard he had to work to learn it. 
> 
> 3\. I realize now that the Pinky and the Brain line is "the same thing we do every night, try to take over the world," we're just going to pretend that Nile also has it misremembered. 
> 
> 4\. This was supposed to be 1,000 words of Joe&Andy friendship fic that truly went off the rails.


End file.
